The present disclosure generally relates to a system for presenting a virtual reality experience to a user, and specifically to an actuator for providing haptic feedback to the user.
A virtual reality system enables a user to experience a virtual reality. The virtual reality system creates a virtual world, and presents a three-dimensional (3-D) image of the virtual world to a user. The virtual reality system updates the visual illustration of the virtual world according to a user's movement, so that the user can visually experience the virtual world. The virtual reality system can also provide haptic feedback to the user. Specifically, the virtual reality system provides to the user haptic feedback that the user can sense in conjunction with the 3-D image of the virtual world to amplify the virtual reality experience.
In one example, the virtual reality system implements actuators providing haptic feedback that a user can sense. Actuators coupled to an edge of a haptic surface can vibrate, for example through an up and down excitation, to generate a wave to provide haptic feedback to the user. However, the wave generated by the actuators vibrating through the simple up and down excitation is scattered omni-directionally rather than being propagated in a controlled (or desired) direction toward the user. Therefore, there is a loss of energy delivered to the user on the haptic surface. Moreover, damping elements may need to be implemented to reduce reflections of waves propagated in untargeted directions.